Storytelling & Business Communication

Why organisations work with Dave Noll He brings a working television creator’s instinct for what survives a pitch room, drawn from selling 60-plus series and more than 3,500 episodes to global networks. The Chopped origin story is a usable case study in persistence. The format was rejected by Food Network before becoming one of the longest-running cooking competitions on US television and earning a James Beard Award. His credentials sit outside the usual corporate speaker pool, which makes the message about creative risk land differently with sales and innovation audiences who have heard the standard versions. He frames innovation as a commercial discipline rather than an ideation exercise, focused on what gets bought, what gets renewed, and what scales internationally. Biography highlights Co-creator of Chopped (Food Network, 2009 to present); franchise inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame. Two-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Gracie Award winner. Chopped won the James Beard Award for Best Television Series in 2012. Co-founder of Keller Noll, a New York-based format development company with international productions across Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, South Africa, Turkey and the United States. Creator of America Says (Game Show Network), No Kitchen Required (BBC America), Rocco’s Dinner Party (Bravo), Beat the House (HGTV), Face The Truth (CBS) and Punchline (FOX). Signed a first-look deal with Boat Rocker in 2021, reported in Deadline. Biography Chopped was rejected by Food Network the first time it was pitched in 2007. The same concept, brought back months later, became one of the longest-running cooking competition formats on US television, has aired since 2009, was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame and won the 2012 James Beard Award for Best Television Series. The producer behind it is Dave Noll, co-founder of Keller Noll, a New York-based format development company he runs with Cleve Keller. Together, they have created and sold more than 60 television series and produced over 3,500 episodes, with productions filmed across eight countries and a 2021 first-look deal with Boat Rocker. His value to a commercial audience is the working knowledge of what it takes to get an idea past the people who say no for a living. That includes America Says on Game Show Network, No Kitchen Required on BBC America, Rocco’s Dinner Party on Bravo, Face The Truth on CBS, and the wider game-show and competition portfolio that the partnership has built since 2007. For sales, marketing and innovation teams, his contribution is closer to a master class in commercial creativity than a leadership talk. He works in an industry where every pitch is graded on what audiences will actually choose to watch, and brings that discipline into rooms where corporate innovation often loses contact with the customer. Key speaking topics Innovation as a commercial discipline Creative persistence and pitch resilience Turning rejected ideas into market-ready products Storytelling and format thinking for brand teams Sales performance and customer-centred creativity Team-level creative culture in deadline-driven environments Ideal for Sales and revenue leadership audiences working on creative differentiation Marketing, brand and innovation teams inside consumer-facing organisations Corporate offsites and annual kick-offs that want a non-corporate voice on creativity and commercial risk Higher education and association audiences focused on entrepreneurship and media Audience outcomes A concrete example of how a category-defining product survives repeated rejection before reaching the market A working producer’s perspective on what makes a creative idea commercially durable Practical reference points from inside one of television’s most successful format development partnerships Renewed conviction in pushing creative work through internal gatekeepers without diluting it

Why organisations work with Scott Dikkers A published method for generating creative output at volume, codified in the “How to Write Funny” series and tested over three decades of running The Onion newsroom. The founder’s view of how a $16,000 college newspaper became a national satirical brand worth multiples of that, with a defined argument about mission, culture and creative discipline drawn from “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Built and runs the “Writing with The Onion” programme at The Second City in Chicago, training comedy writers who have gone on to Emmy-winning television rooms, so the keynote sits on top of a working teaching practice. A practitioner’s perspective on creativity in the age of generative AI, framed around how human writers and editors keep brand voice intact when first drafts are cheap and originality is not. Biography highlights Founder of The Onion and TheOnion.com, the world’s first humour website. Longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion across two tenures (1988-1999 and 2005-2008) and former General Manager and VP of Creative Development. Number one New York Times bestselling author of “Our Dumb Century,” winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Author of more than 30 books, including the “How to Write Funny” series, “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Creator of the “Writing with The Onion” programme at The Second City training centre in Chicago. Syndicated cartoonist of “Jim’s Journal,” distributed to college newspapers across the United States from 1987 to 1997. Biography A satirical college newspaper bought for $16,000 in 1989 became one of the most recognisable brands in American media. The route from there to a national audience, a Peabody-winning news network and a publishing list that has sold millions of copies was not luck. It was a writers’ room run with unusual discipline, and Scott Dikkers ran it for most of its formative years. As editor-in-chief of The Onion across two tenures, and later as General Manager and VP of Creative Development, Dikkers built the editorial process that produced the headlines most readers can still quote. He launched TheOnion.com in 1996, the first humour website on the internet, and went on to edit “Our Dumb Century,” a number one New York Times bestseller that won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and has sold more than half a million copies. The argument behind his commercial work is set out in “How to Write Funny,” “Outrageous Marketing” and “The Onion Story.” Comedy is not magic. It is a method, and brand voice is the operational output of that method. Dikkers codified the process at The Onion, then transferred it into the “Writing with The Onion” programme he created at The Second City training centre in Chicago, where his students have been hired into Emmy-winning television rooms. For corporate audiences, the relevance is direct. Generative AI has made first drafts trivial and originality scarce. Dikkers’ keynote takes the writers’ room discipline that built The Onion and applies it to creative output, brand voice and the question every marketing and product team is now asking: how do you keep what makes your work yours when the cost of imitation has collapsed. Key speaking topics Creativity as an operating discipline Brand voice and editorial culture Humour and storytelling in business communication Building a media brand from a standing start Creative leadership in the age of generative AI Media literacy and the reading of satire Mission-led culture in creative organisations Ideal for CMOs, brand and content leaders managing creative output at scale Innovation, R&D and product leadership teams working alongside generative AI tools Communications, internal comms and L&D leaders rebuilding storytelling capability Entrepreneurship programmes and founder audiences at universities and conferences Audience outcomes A working method for generating original creative material, drawn from the writers’ room that built The Onion A clearer language for what brand voice is and how it survives contact with AI-generated content A founder’s view of how a small editorial team scaled into a national media business without losing its identity A sharper test for distinguishing satire and credible information in a feed-driven media environment A reference set of named examples from three decades of Onion headlines that a team can take back into its own creative reviews

Why organisations work with Matt Eversmann He brings a first-person, documented account of small-unit leadership inside the Battle of Mogadishu, one of the most analysed combat actions of the modern era, and translates it directly into commercial decision-making. His Bronze Star with Valor and 20 years in elite Ranger and Infantry units give credibility on team performance under stress that consulting frameworks cannot replicate. As co-author with James Patterson of three New York Times bestselling oral histories of soldiers and police officers, he has spent a decade interviewing operators about how teams hold together, which sharpens his content well beyond a single war story. His teaching record at the U.S. Army War College and the Johns Hopkins ROTC program means he speaks to leaders in the language of training and followership, not just battlefield anecdotes. He is the rare keynote a senior team will quote back to each other a week later, because the material concerns specific, named decisions, not abstractions about resilience. Biography highlights Retired U.S. Army First Sergeant, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment; 20 years of active service. Bronze Star Medal with Valor device for actions in the Battle of Mogadishu, October 3, 1993. Portrayed by Josh Hartnett in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001); the first source interviewed for Mark Bowden’s original book. Co-author with James Patterson of Walk in My Combat Boots, Walk the Blue Line and American Heroes, all New York Times bestsellers in the Heroes Among Us series. Former Operations Sergeant at the U.S. Army War College and former instructor in Johns Hopkins University’s ROTC program. Deployed to Iraq from 2007 to 2008 as an Infantry Company First Sergeant with the 10th Mountain Division during the Surge. Biography The Battle of Mogadishu on 3 October 1993 lasted roughly 18 hours. Inside it, a young staff sergeant from the 3rd Ranger Battalion was responsible for a chalk of soldiers fast-roping into a city that had already gone wrong. That sergeant was Matt Eversmann, and the decisions he made in those hours became one of the most studied case studies in modern small-unit command. The reason that experience matters in a boardroom is not symbolism. It is that the conditions Rangers train for, incomplete information, broken communications, no time to consult upward, are the same conditions senior teams now face during cyber incidents, supply shocks and reputational crises. Eversmann teaches what holds and what fails when a plan does not survive contact. His authority on the subject extends well beyond his own service. As co-author with James Patterson of Walk in My Combat Boots, Walk the Blue Line and American Heroes, he has spent years interviewing soldiers, police officers and first responders about the texture of decisions made under load. That body of work, three New York Times bestsellers, sits behind every keynote. Before founding Eversmann Advisory in 2018, he served as Operations Sergeant at the U.S. Army War College, taught leadership in the Johns Hopkins University ROTC program, and led an Infantry Company through the Iraq Surge. The result is a speaker who can move from a specific named moment in Mogadishu to a specific question a CEO is asking about command culture, without losing either audience. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and in crisis Team performance in high-stakes environments Decision-making with incomplete information Accountability and followership inside elite units Trust and culture in small teams Lessons from the Battle of Mogadishu and combat command Service, sacrifice and operator stories from Walk in My Combat Boots Ideal for CEO and C-suite offsites focused on resilience, command culture and crisis decision-making. Leadership development programmes for senior operators, plant managers, regional heads and first-line commanders of large field organisations. Conferences for sectors with a high-consequence operating tempo: financial services, energy, healthcare, defence, law enforcement, and aviation. Annual sales kick-offs and partner meetings looking for a serious anchor keynote rather than entertainment. Audience outcomes A vocabulary for naming what their teams actually do well and badly when conditions go non-linear. Specific lessons from a documented combat action that translate to crisis governance and post-incident review. A clearer view of what accountability looks like at the team-leader level, distinct from individual performance. Renewed seriousness about preparation, rehearsal and standards as cultural artefacts, not HR processes. Stories with named operators and named events that senior leaders can reference back inside their own organisations.

Why organisations work with Amelia Rose Earhart Her “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” protocol, drawn directly from aviation’s standard emergency sequence, gives organisations a practical, step-ordered model for distributing responsibility and maintaining forward momentum when conditions destabilise. The 2014 circumnavigation she planned and executed required close to $2 million in corporate partnerships across 28 organisations, custom FAA engineering approval for an aircraft modification, and 17-stop coordination across 14 countries, making her case study in mission execution verifiable and specific, not metaphorical. A genealogy investigation, published by a colleague just before her departure, revealed no traceable connection to her famous namesake and triggered public accusations of fraud; the fact that she proceeded and completed the flight gives her resilience argument a dimension most speakers cannot replicate. Learn to Love the Turbulence (2023) extends her “pilot in command” framework into a structured leadership methodology – passengers react while pilots decide – providing a reference architecture that client teams can apply long after the event. Audiences include Boeing, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, United Healthcare, Lockheed Martin, Capital One, and the United States Air Force Academy, giving her both commercial credibility and access to high-stakes operational contexts. Biography highlights Youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engine aircraft (Pilatus PC-12 NG, 2014); first to do so in that aircraft type Self-funded and managed the 24,300-nautical-mile, 17-stop global flight, raising close to $2 million across 28 corporate partnerships and securing custom FAA engineering approval Holds private, instrument, and commercial pilot certificates Approximately 15 years as a broadcast news anchor and reporter: KUSA-TV (9NEWS, NBC affiliate, Denver) and Los Angeles television Author of Learn to Love the Turbulence (2023, with Kristin Clark Taylor); keynote clients include Boeing, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, United Healthcare, and the United States Air Force Academy Amelia Earhart Pioneering Achievement Award (2013, Atchison, Kansas Chamber of Commerce); Jaycees Top Ten Young Americans (2014) Biography Aviation has a decision protocol for moments when a flight goes wrong: aviate first, navigate second, communicate third. Amelia Rose Earhart spent two years designing a circumnavigation that would test that protocol under real conditions. Closed borders, a custom FAA-engineered fuel system, and a public genealogy scandal nearly derailed the flight before it left California. In June 2014, she departed Oakland in a single-engine Pilatus PC-12 NG. Across 17 stops and 24,300 nautical miles through 14 countries, she landed back in California on July 11. The mission required close to $2 million in corporate partnerships across 28 organisations, custom FAA engineering approval, and open-water survival training. She became the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engine aircraft, and the first to do it in a PC-12 NG. Her 2023 book, Learn to Love the Turbulence, codifies what that flight revealed about organisational decision-making. Preparedness, not optimism, is what keeps teams airborne when conditions deteriorate. The “pilot in command” framework – passengers react, pilots decide – is now the architecture of her work with Fortune 500 clients and the United States Air Force Academy. Before the circumnavigation, she spent approximately 15 years as a news anchor and reporter, at KUSA-TV (NBC’s Denver affiliate) and in Los Angeles. That background sharpens her communication under pressure and her ability to hold a senior audience, which are not the same skill. Key speaking topics High-stakes decision-making and mission execution Resilience and adaptive leadership Strategic planning under uncertainty Risk assessment and contingency thinking Goal setting and organisational accountability Women in aviation and STEM leadership pathways Team performance under pressure Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating high-stakes execution challenges or strategic pivots Sales and commercial teams preparing for stretch targets or significant market disruption Women’s leadership programmes and DEI-focused executive conferences Annual leadership conferences and kick-offs requiring both narrative coherence and audience energy Audience outcomes A practical decision sequence – aviate, navigate, communicate – for maintaining clarity and distributing responsibility when a plan breaks down in real time A clearer distinction between reactive and decisive leadership, with a specific framework for building the latter as a team habit Concrete tools for forecasting risk and planning contingencies, drawn directly from aviation mission-planning discipline A reframing of disruption as a navigable condition rather than an exceptional one – and the mindset shift required to operate accordingly A reference framework from Learn to Love the Turbulence that extends the conversation beyond the event itself

Why organisations work with Phil Hansen A creativity argument grounded in a documented personal case. The shift from precision pointillism to working with tremor became the basis for a body of work, not a recovery story bolted onto a talk. A live participatory format. Audiences co-create a physical artwork during the session and keep it, which gives the message a durable internal artefact most keynotes cannot leave behind. A TED2013 main-stage talk that has sustained a public audience for more than a decade, used in classrooms and corporate learning programmes alongside the keynote. A track record across creative and commercial platforms including Adobe MAX, the Grammy Awards, Disney, the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. A Guinness World Record portrait built from 52,901 individual dots, which functions as a tangible proof point for the discipline of working within self-imposed constraint. Biography highlights TED2013 speaker, “Embrace the Shake.” Author of “Tattoo a Banana” (Perigee/Penguin Random House, 2012) and “Phil Hansen: In Process” (2015). Guinness World Record holder for the largest connect-the-dots image (52,901 dots, 2017). Keynote and live-art appearances for Adobe MAX, the Grammy Awards, Disney, Skype, Mazda, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Million Dollar Round Table and the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. Featured by Discovery Channel, Good Morning America, BBC and PBS. Biography A neurologist’s instruction to “embrace the shake” became the starting point for an entire body of work. The pointillism Hansen had trained on was no longer physically available to him. What replaced it was a practice built around unusual materials, unusual surfaces and the deliberate use of constraint as the brief itself, captured in the time-lapse videos that have become his signature output. The TED2013 talk made that case to a general audience. The keynote translates it for organisations: when teams treat constraint as the problem, they spend their energy on the constraint. When they treat it as the brief, they spend it on the work. The argument is simple, the proof is the practice it produced. The corporate engagements followed the talk: Adobe MAX, the Grammy Awards, Disney, Skype, Mazda, the Rockefeller Foundation. The format is unusual for a business audience because the audience makes something. A collaborative artwork is produced live in the room and stays with the client, which gives the session a physical residue most keynotes do not. The Guinness record for a connect-the-dots image of 52,901 points sits alongside the books, “Tattoo a Banana” and “In Process,” as evidence that the method is not a story about overcoming an obstacle. It is a working discipline that has produced output for two decades. Key speaking topics Creativity under constraint Innovation culture in resource-limited environments Reframing limitation as creative brief Collaborative creative practice Resilience and creative reinvention Experiential keynote and live-art performance Ideal for Innovation, R&D and product leaders building team creative practice under tighter budgets CHROs and culture leads running offsites, leadership conferences and post-restructure team events Marketing, design and brand teams looking for an experiential session rather than a lecture format Conference programmers seeking a high-energy participatory keynote to anchor a programme Audience outcomes A working definition of constraint as a creative input, with a specific example produced live in the room A physical collaborative artwork created during the session that the organisation keeps Language to use internally when teams default to treating constraint as the problem A reference case (the shake, the materials, the record) that travels easily inside the organisation after the event

Why organisations work with Rory Cowlam His 2020 book The Secret Life of a Vet (Hodder & Stoughton) makes a specific structural argument: that mental health breakdown in demanding professions is driven by systemic design – appointment length, absence of emotional processing time, cultural silence – not individual weakness. This gives audiences a framework, not just a story. As Clinical Director and co-founder of Pickles Vets, he has built a wellbeing-first practice model from the ground up, which means his arguments about workplace culture come with operational proof, not just principles. His own experience of dyslexia – sustained across a high-stakes clinical career – gives him a credibility on neurodiversity that is qualitatively different from speakers who come to the topic from coaching or consultancy. His platform as Blue Peter’s resident vet and regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Lorraine demonstrates an unusual ability to translate clinical complexity into plain, accessible language – directly relevant for organisations communicating sensitive topics to broad internal audiences. As a co-founder of VidiVet, a digital platform designed to extend veterinary access and reduce pressure on overstretched clinical teams, he brings a practical, innovation-oriented lens to workforce sustainability. Biography highlights Clinical Director and co-founder, Pickles Vets, Fulham, London – an RCVS-registered, wellbeing-first membership veterinary practice Graduate of the Royal Veterinary College, London (BVetMed PgCert MRCVS), qualified 2015 Author of The Secret Life of a Vet (Hodder & Stoughton, 2020) – Amazon bestseller addressing mental health in clinical professions Lead talent and presenter, The Pets Factor, CBBC; resident vet, Blue Peter (BBC, since 2019); regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Lorraine Ambassador, British Dyslexia Association and StreetVet; RSPCA ambassador Co-founder, VidiVet – a digital veterinary advice platform designed to improve access and reduce workload pressure on clinical teams Nominated, Vet of the Year, Animal Star Awards (2018 and 2019) Biography The veterinary profession has one of the highest rates of burnout and mental health difficulty of any skilled workforce in the UK. Rory Cowlam has been arguing, publicly and with clinical authority, that this is not a coincidence – and not a personal failing. It is what happens when a system is designed around throughput rather than people. His 2020 book The Secret Life of a Vet, published by Hodder & Stoughton and an Amazon bestseller, made that argument in direct, first-person terms. It did not frame mental health as a welfare footnote; it placed it at the centre of what makes or breaks professional culture in high-pressure environments. As Clinical Director and co-founder of Pickles Vets in London, Cowlam has since built a practice model that tests those arguments in practice – longer appointments, staffed-to-capacity teams, and transparency on pricing as foundations for a working environment that retains talented clinicians rather than burning them out. His own dyslexia, navigated through a demanding clinical training and a broadcast career spanning The Pets Factor (CBBC), Blue Peter, BBC Breakfast, and ITV’s Lorraine, gives him a lived, professionally grounded perspective on neurodiversity that organisations rarely encounter from a speaker. He does not speak about dyslexia as a historical obstacle overcome; he speaks about it as a continuing factor in how he works, leads, and communicates. A graduate of the Royal Veterinary College and co-founder of VidiVet, a digital platform extending veterinary access, Cowlam sits at a distinctive intersection: practising clinician, published author, broadcast communicator, and operational founder. For organisations wrestling with retention, neurodiversity inclusion, and the gap between wellbeing policy and workplace reality, he offers something specific – a structural diagnosis, not a motivational remedy. Key speaking topics Mental health and burnout in high-pressure professions Neurodiversity and dyslexia in professional environments Wellbeing by design – structural approaches to workforce sustainability Veterinary practice and the realities of clinical leadership Communicating complex expertise to public audiences Animal welfare, charity engagement, and purpose at work Ideal for CHROs and people directors in healthcare, clinical, and high-pressure professional services organisations Wellbeing leads and occupational health teams Early careers and graduate development audiences in clinical and technical professions Diversity and inclusion leads focused on neurodiversity strategy Audience outcomes A reframing of mental health from individual issue to structural design question – with practical implications for how teams are built and managed Clearer language for discussing neurodiversity in professional settings, grounded in lived clinical experience rather than theory An understanding of what a wellbeing-first workplace model looks like operationally, drawn from Cowlam’s own practice at Pickles Vets Greater confidence in communicating specialist expertise to non-specialist audiences – a skill Cowlam models directly in his broadcast work Honest perspective on what high-pressure career paths actually demand, useful for early careers programmes and talent retention conversations

Why organisations work with Michael Maisey Lived experience that lands in rooms where wellbeing decks usually do not, drawn from five years in Feltham Young Offenders Institute and a documented twenty-year rebuild. Operates an active service organisation. The CIP Project runs residential workshops from a 25-acre Devon retreat centre, giving him a working view of what actually helps people recover, not a theoretical one. Two published works that hold up to corporate scrutiny: Young Offender (Pan Macmillan, 2019) and Change is Possible: The Seven Stages to Healing Trauma (2025). The second gives him a named framework, not just a story. Civic recognition by the London Borough of Hounslow and the Metropolitan Police in 2014, a useful third-party validation when buyers vet speakers with criminal-record backgrounds. Talks designed to give managers practical language for the empathy-and-communication conversation, rather than a motivational arc that leaves the audience moved but unequipped. Biography highlights Founder of The CIP Project, a UK non-profit operating from a 25-acre retreat centre in Devon. Author of Young Offender: My Life from Armed Robber to Local Hero, published by Pan Macmillan in 2019. Author of Change is Possible: The Seven Stages to Healing Trauma, published in 2025. TEDx speaker. Talk title: “The Healing Power of Connection”. Honoured by the London Borough of Hounslow and the Metropolitan Police in 2014 for services to the community. Over 17 years sober. Public advocacy work across UK prisons, including author visits to HMYOI Aylesbury. Biography Most corporate wellbeing programmes do not fail on intent. They fail on permission. Employees are offered resources, apps and policies, but rarely the model of what an honest conversation about mental health, addiction or trauma actually sounds like in a working environment. Michael Maisey’s contribution is to provide that model in a room of senior managers, with credibility earned outside the wellness industry. His route into the work is unusually direct. At sixteen he was sentenced for armed robbery and spent much of his teenage years in Feltham Young Offenders Institute. The rebuild that followed produced two things organisations care about: a published autobiography with Pan Macmillan, Young Offender, in 2019; and a working non-profit, The CIP Project, founded in 2018 on a 25-acre site in Devon, supporting people with addiction, mental health, PTSD and childhood trauma. A second book, Change is Possible: The Seven Stages to Healing Trauma, followed in 2025 and gives him a structured framework rather than a single biographical story. His TEDx talk, “The Healing Power of Connection”, is the most-quoted piece of his keynote content in workplace settings. In 2014, the London Borough of Hounslow and the Metropolitan Police recognised him formally for services to the community. For a head of people or culture, the practical value is twofold. Maisey can hold a room on the subjects that most speakers either soften or skirt: suicidal ideation, addiction, the texture of trauma. And he can hand managers a vocabulary for the empathy-and-communication conversation that has otherwise sat in the wellbeing policy and never made it onto the floor. Key speaking topics Workplace mental health Empathy and compassion at work Trauma recovery Addiction and the workplace Personal transformation and lived experience Communication around wellbeing Ideal for CHROs, heads of people, heads of culture and wellbeing leads commissioning workplace mental health content Internal manager populations responsible for direct conversations about wellbeing Employee resource groups and DEI forums focused on mental health and recovery Conference programmes seeking a lived-experience anchor on wellbeing alongside clinical or academic speakers Audience outcomes Sharper language for raising mental health, addiction or trauma in a workplace conversation without making it clinical A more concrete view of what recovery actually requires, drawn from operating a residential support model Permission, observed in the room, for senior people to speak honestly about their own experience A framework, drawn from the seven stages in Change is Possible, for thinking about trauma in stages rather than as a single event

Why organisations work with Ben Hanlin He has spent twenty years professionally holding the attention of audiences who did not ask to be entertained, a craft most keynote speakers approximate and never master. His engagement and rapport techniques are not theoretical. They are the working methods of a magician adapted for sales teams, client conversations and conference stages, and they were sharp enough to win Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards 2024. He is one of the few speakers who can credibly anchor a full conference day, opening with a keynote, hosting the agenda, and closing with the awards, without changing register. Major brand audiences including Google, PwC, Coca-Cola and Amplifi book him for the same reason: he reliably resets the energy of a room and gives an audience something to remember about it the next morning. The Speaker Awards 2024 triple, Speaker of the Year, Best Newcomer and Best TEDx Speaker, was judged by industry bookers on content, delivery and bookability. That combination of recognitions in a single year is rare. Biography highlights Creator, writer and star of ITV2’s hidden-camera magic series Tricked, three series broadcast 2013 to 2016. Presenter of Breaking Magic on the Discovery Channel. Series 12 finalist on ITV’s Dancing on Ice (2020), finishing fourth. Speaker of the Year, Best Newcomer and Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards 2024. TEDx London speaker, “How to Create INSTANT Engagement and Connection” (2024). Combined online following of two million plus across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Biography Most keynote speakers learn to hold a room by stepping onto a corporate stage. Ben Hanlin learned it on the street, in pubs and on prime-time television, where the audience has not agreed in advance to pay attention and the speaker has roughly four seconds to earn it. Twenty years of working as a professional magician is, among other things, twenty years of solving that problem. That craft moved onto television with Tricked, the ITV2 hidden-camera magic series he created, wrote and presented across three series between 2013 and 2016, followed by Breaking Magic on the Discovery Channel and a fourth-place finish on series 12 of Dancing on Ice. The work travels: his combined audience across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook now sits above two million. The keynote work is a translation of the same discipline. Hanlin teaches the working methods a magician uses to create rapport, hold attention and make a message stick, applied to sales conversations, client meetings, leadership presence and the inside of a conference room. In 2024 his TEDx London talk “How to Create INSTANT Engagement and Connection” was named Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards. At the same ceremony he was also named Speaker of the Year and Best Newcomer, judged by industry bookers on content, delivery and bookability. Organisations including Google, PwC, Coca-Cola and Amplifi book him in three modes: keynote on engagement and human connection, full-day conference facilitation, and high-energy awards hosting. The common thread is the same craft applied at different scales, the ability to walk into a room of distracted people and leave it as a connected audience. Key speaking topics Engagement and human connection Instant rapport and audience attention Communication under pressure Innovation and creative confidence Resilience and dealing with failure Conference hosting and awards facilitation Ideal for Sales conferences, kick-offs and national sales meetings Awards nights and gala dinners requiring a host who can also deliver content Leadership and client-facing teams working on rapport, presence and communication Full-day conferences needing a single anchor across keynote, facilitation and after-dinner roles Audience outcomes A working set of rapport and attention techniques drawn from twenty years of professional magic, usable the next morning in client meetings. Sharper instincts for reading a room and recovering it when energy drops. A clearer sense of how to make a message land and be remembered. A shared, high-energy moment that resets the tone of the conference or sales event.

Why organisations work with Amy Carroll She works on the specific moments leadership training usually skips: board challenges, negotiations that stall, team conversations that tip into defensiveness. Leaders leave with something they can apply on Monday, not a model to file. Her 7 Partner Mindset methodology, built on the licensed Predator, Prey or Partner model from Pat Kirkland Leadership, gives executives a usable vocabulary for power dynamics most leaders feel but cannot name. The client list runs through organisations that do not buy soft skills lightly: Nestle, Novartis, Cisco, UBS, Ernst and Young, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the European Stability Mechanism. Thirty years across psychology, executive coaching, and psychiatric and managed-care settings give her range on human behaviour that communications trainers rarely carry. Recognition from Global Gurus, including a Top 20 position in the Communication category, places her among a small group of named practitioners in the field. Biography highlights Author of The Ego Tango: How to Get More of What You Want More Often with Less Hassle, Using These 7 Partner Mindset Techniques Host of Partner Up! with Amy Carroll on VoiceAmerica Business Channel, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Ranked among Global Gurus’ Top 30 Communication Professionals, placing #18 in 2023 Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, with a BA in Psychology Coaching and training clients include Nestle, Novartis, Microsoft, Cisco, UBS, Ernst and Young, Procter and Gamble, Medtronic, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and the European Stability Mechanism Licenses the Predator, Prey or Partner model from Pat Kirkland Leadership Inc. and built the 7 Partner Mindset methodology on top of it Biography Most leadership failures happen in conversation. A board member challenges an assumption and the chief executive concedes ground she should have held. A senior partner pushes harder than the client will accept. A team leader in a performance review slips from clarity into apology. The cost is rarely dramatic, but it compounds, and it sits outside what strategy decks or standard communications training address. Amy Carroll works on that gap. Her 7 Partner Mindset methodology, built on the licensed Predator, Prey or Partner model from Pat Kirkland Leadership, gives executives a working vocabulary for the power dynamics they feel in the room but cannot usually name. The framework draws from three decades in psychology, executive coaching, and earlier work in psychiatric and managed-care settings, which is a wider behavioural base than most communications coaches bring. Her book, The Ego Tango, sets out the methodology through cases from the workshops she runs with multinational clients. The client list is instructive: Nestle, Novartis, Cisco, UBS, Ernst and Young, Medtronic, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the European Stability Mechanism. These are organisations where a senior leader’s composure under challenge is a measurable commercial asset. She hosts Partner Up! with Amy Carroll on VoiceAmerica Business Channel, and has been named among Global Gurus’ Top 30 Communication Professionals, including a Top 20 placement in 2023. The recognition is useful context; the substance is the work itself, which is a repeatable method for holding authority when the stakes rise. Key speaking topics Leadership communication under pressure Power and influence in senior conversations Executive presence and authority High-stakes negotiation dynamics Emotional intelligence for senior leaders Storytelling and persuasion in business Coaching culture and leadership development Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams preparing for board, investor, or regulator-facing conversations Partners and client-facing leaders in professional services and financial services HR and Learning leads building executive development programmes Senior women navigating authority in traditionally male-dominated rooms Audience outcomes A named vocabulary for the power dynamics that sit beneath difficult conversations, so leaders can diagnose what is happening in the moment Specific techniques from the 7 Partner Mindset model to stay composed when challenged and to influence without escalating A sharper read on their own default patterns under stress, including where they concede and where they overreach Language for feedback, negotiation, and disagreement that holds authority without damaging the relationship A practical sense of how senior presence is built through behaviour, not positioning

Why organisations work with Jenny Radcliffe She has spent decades being paid to break into client buildings, networks and confidence; the briefings she gives boards are based on what worked, not what theory predicts. She runs Human Factor Security, the consultancy she founded to handle authorised physical-access and social-engineering testing for organisations that want their human layer stress-tested rather than surveyed. Her induction into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame placed her among a small group recognised for shifting the industry’s view of human risk from a training problem to a security discipline. People Hacker, published by Simon and Schuster, gives senior audiences a single readable account of how cons, pretexts and physical infiltration actually work inside corporate environments. She translates attacker behaviour into specific decisions about hiring, access, vendor management and culture, which is what a CISO’s report to the board usually leaves out. Biography highlights Founder and director of Human Factor Security, the consultancy she set up in 2013 to focus on human-factor risk. Inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame in 2022 and delivered that year’s Hall of Fame Annual Lecture. Author of People Hacker: Confessions of a Burglar for Hire, Simon and Schuster. Host of the Human Factor podcast, awarded European Best Security Podcast at the 2018 European Blogger Awards. Multiple TEDx speaker on social engineering, deception and influence. Featured “HQ Hunter” on Channel 4’s Hunted, applying her OSINT and undercover tradecraft on screen. Regular keynote contributor at Infosecurity Europe, RANT, Cisco events, Trend Micro events and the PCI Security Standards Council Community Meetings. Biography The fastest way past most corporate security is to ring the doorbell. Jenny Radcliffe has spent her career proving it, working as an authorised social engineer hired to walk into offices, data centres and executive floors using nothing more than confidence, a cover story and a careful read of the people in front of her. Human Factor Security, the consultancy she founded in 2013, runs that work as a discipline rather than a stunt. Clients commission live infiltration tests, pretext calls and on-site assessments; the findings then feed into board-level guidance on how culture, process and physical design create the openings attackers actually use. Her book People Hacker: Confessions of a Burglar for Hire, published by Simon and Schuster, sets out the playbook in detail, and the Human Factor podcast has built a long-running audience among security and risk professionals, winning European Best Security Podcast at the 2018 European Blogger Awards. Television work on Channel 4’s Hunted and multiple TEDx talks have widened the audience well beyond the cyber industry. In 2022 she was inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame and delivered the Hall of Fame Annual Lecture, “Facta Non Verba: Six Life Lessons from a Social Engineer”. For senior buyers, that recognition matters less than the underlying point: she is one of a small number of voices the security industry now treats as authoritative on the human side of the threat, and she briefs boards in the same plain language she uses to brief her own clients after a successful break-in. Key speaking topics Social engineering and human-factor security Physical-access testing and corporate infiltration Fraud, scams and modern-day con tactics Security culture and workforce behaviour Deception, influence and non-verbal communication Insider threat and pretext attacks Board-level cybersecurity briefing Ideal for CISOs, CSOs and heads of information security commissioning human-risk programmes Boards and executive committees reviewing cyber and operational resilience Heads of risk, compliance and governance overseeing fraud and insider threat Corporate security, facilities and HR leaders responsible for access, vetting and culture Audience outcomes A clear picture of how attackers actually combine pretext, OSINT and physical access against organisations like theirs. Specific control points where human behaviour, not technology, decides whether an attack succeeds. Sharper questions to put to security, HR and facilities teams about access, vetting and incident response. A working vocabulary for discussing social engineering and human risk at board level. Confidence that security awareness can be redesigned around real attacker behaviour rather than generic training.

Why organisations work with Andy Lopata He reframes networking as a leadership discipline. The argument lands with executives who have dismissed the topic as junior or transactional, and gives them a structured way to think about who supports them, how, and why. The Relationship Matrix gives leaders a tangible way to audit their professional support system, identify where it is thin, and decide where to invest. Few speakers in this space work at that level of operational specificity. His mentoring work, anchored in The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring co-authored with Dr Ruth Gotian of Weill Cornell, gives organisations a serious reference point for designing mentoring programmes that retain senior talent. Twenty-five years inside the topic, recognition from the Financial Times and Forbes, and a 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award shortlist place him in a small group of speakers who have built genuine institutional credibility on professional relationships. He works with the cultural problem behind the leadership one: why senior people will not ask for help, and what it costs the organisation when they do not. Biography highlights Author of six books, including Connected Leadership (2020) and The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring (Pearson, 2024, with Dr Ruth Gotian). Shortlisted for the 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award. Two-time board member and former President of the Fellows Community of the Professional Speaking Association UK and Ireland; holder of the PSAE, the PSA’s Hall of Fame distinction. Fellow of the Learning and Performance Institute; member of the Association of Business Mentors and the Meetings Industry Association. Contributor to Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today; host of The Connected Leadership Podcast. Clients include PayPal, Google, Harrods, BBC, HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline, Allen and Overy, Saïd Business School and Brother International Europe. Biography Most senior leaders rise on technical and commercial credibility, then hit a level where the job is mostly relational. They under-invest in mentors, hesitate to ask for help, and end up isolated at exactly the point where their decisions carry the most weight. That gap is what Lopata’s work addresses. For more than twenty-five years he has worked on professional relationships as an executive capability rather than a soft skill. The Financial Times has called him one of Europe’s leading business networking strategists; Forbes has described him as a true master of networking. The label undersells the work. His Relationship Matrix gives leaders a structured way to audit who supports them, where the gaps are, and where to invest. Frameworks like the Seven Stages of Professional Relationships and The Influence Wheel extend that work into stakeholder mapping, influence and senior mentoring practice. His books map the territory in detail. Connected Leadership argues that executive success is built on a deliberate web of relationships, and was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards in 2021. The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, co-authored with Dr Ruth Gotian of Weill Cornell Medicine in 2024, gives organisations a reference text for treating mentoring as a strategic retention and development tool. The book was a runner-up for Leadership Book of the Year at the 2024 Leadership Awards. The institutional weight follows the work. He is a former President of the Fellows Community of the Professional Speaking Association UK and Ireland and holds its PSAE Hall of Fame distinction. He was shortlisted for the 2025 Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award, contributes to Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today, and has worked with PayPal, Google, HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline, the BBC and Saïd Business School on the same underlying problem: how senior people stop performing in isolation and start leading through the relationships around them. Key speaking topics Professional relationships as a leadership capability Mentoring strategy and programme design Asking for help and the cost of not asking Vulnerable leadership Referral and influence networks Connected leadership and executive support systems Psychological safety and speaking up at senior level Ideal for CEOs, executive committees and partners moving into senior leadership roles where the work becomes relational CHROs and learning leaders designing mentoring, succession and retention programmes Professional services and partner-track populations where business development depends on relationship quality Sales leaders rebuilding referral networks and account relationships Audience outcomes A clear framework, the Relationship Matrix, for auditing the professional support system around a senior role A different language for mentoring as a strategic asset rather than a benefit programme Specific shifts in how leaders approach asking for help, and why most do not A more honest read on where executive isolation is costing the organisation in retention, succession and decision quality Practical adjustments to how teams use referrals, networks and senior relationships in commercial contexts

Why organisations work with Dave Steele He turns an abstract inclusion agenda into a room of people who have felt something specific. Poetry, song and personal testimony land with audiences in a way a policy deck cannot. He brings a named platform behind the message: the Stand By Me RP community he founded in 2015 is one of the largest RP groups in the world, and his trilogy topped poetry charts in the US and Australia. He has been trusted by serious institutions to represent the patient and lived-experience voice, including the American Foundation for the Blind (Helen Keller Achievement Awards emcee) and the National Eye Institute at NIH. Brand and product work with Apple, Meta, Audi, Kellogg’s, Navilens and OrCam gives him direct fluency in how large companies are approaching accessibility in practice, not just in principle. He delivers as a performer as well as a speaker, which makes him suited to conference mainstage, awards nights and internal culture events where a standard keynote would not move the room. Biography highlights Author of the “Stand By Me RP” poetry trilogy (2016-2018); Volume I reached number one poetic release in the US and Australia in its first week. Founder of the Stand By Me RP online community (2015), one of the largest Retinitis Pigmentosa support groups on social media. Emcee of the 24th Annual Helen Keller Achievement Awards, American Foundation for the Blind. Invited speaker at the National Institutes of Health, where he opened the National Eye Institute Intramural Program retreat in April 2024. Patron of Henshaws; 2018 Henshaws Impact Award; 2018 Pride of Bury Community Hero Award; 2023 National Diversity Award shortlist (Positive Role Model for Disability). Global Ambassador for Two Blind Brothers; collaborator with Apple, Meta, Audi, Kellogg’s, Parfums de Marly, Navilens and OrCam. Biography Most inclusion work still treats disability as an HR category. A poem, delivered in a room of executives, does something a training module cannot. It gives the audience a few minutes inside someone else’s life, and that is what Dave Steele’s work depends on. Steele was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 2014. He had been a singer and a car salesman; the diagnosis ended both careers and left him at home in Manchester with four children and serious debt. In 2015 he started a Facebook page called “Stand By Me RP,” named after a song he had rewritten for a support group. It became one of the largest RP communities on social media and the seed of everything that followed. The poetry came next. His “Stand By Me RP” trilogy, released annually between 2016 and 2018, reached the top of poetry charts in the United States and Australia. He has since written more than 700 poems and songs about sight loss. That body of work is why serious institutions invite him in: he emceed the 24th Helen Keller Achievement Awards for the American Foundation for the Blind, and in April 2024 opened the National Eye Institute’s Intramural Program retreat at NIH at the invitation of its scientific director. The organisational value is different from a typical DEI speaker. Steele does not offer a framework. He offers a specific voice that leaders can put in front of their people when they want an inclusion conversation to stop feeling procedural, supported by active work with Apple, Meta, Audi, Kellogg’s, Navilens and OrCam on how accessibility actually shows up in product and brand. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and lived experience Sight loss and visual impairment advocacy Resilience after a life-changing diagnosis Accessibility in product, brand and workplace Poetry and storytelling as communication Mental health and identity through chronic illness Patient voice in medical and research settings Ideal for CHRO, DEI and employee experience leaders running disability inclusion or accessibility programmes Healthcare, life sciences and ophthalmology audiences wanting an authentic patient voice Awards nights, conference mainstage slots and internal culture events that need a performer as well as a speaker Consumer, tech and retail brands working on accessibility in product and communications Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what a progressive sight loss diagnosis does to work, family and identity A sharper sense of where stated inclusion policies diverge from daily employee experience Specific references from brand and product work with companies like Apple, Meta and OrCam on accessibility in practice Poetry and spoken-word performance that anchors the message in memory long after the event A reframing of disability as an active contribution to an organisation, not a compliance line